Guild Wars 2

Devata.6589:

Scoundrel.2139:

I’m all for locking things behind a skill wall. But not behind an RNG wall. Can’t jump up the tower? Then no. Can’t kill Liadri? Then no. That type of thing.

I think it’s time for a breather til they get their act together in a year or so.

I think you will always need RNG to some extent in an MMO. The question is more how you do it.

In this game though, the RNG is now dominated by: 99.9999% chance of crap loot (and I mean that, it’s absolute trash. If I put it on the sidewalk, the local council would fine me instead of picking it up) that you can get outside the thing that you opened in the first place, or a thing worth a bazillion gold.

What does this current thread offer that https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss doesn’t in a more scholarly fashion? Or is this thread just another place to vent about abstract concepts of reward or lack thereof? For anyone who actually cares about rewards in GW2, please refer to the aforementioned thread. It has a red post and everything. And candy. Well, no candy. Still worth following.

slamfunction.7462:

It is gambling. Make no mistake about that. I’m just waiting to read the news here in a few weeks about a class action lawsuit hitting ANet over it, because i’m pretty sure its illegal somewhere, if there isn’t a “Better Business Bureau” somewhere that will raise a fuss over it.

I’m familiar with gambling rules around the world. GW2 doesn’t have anything that falls under any gaming regulation. It misses a key component. The missing component is that you receive neither money, nor anything that can be legally sold for money.

Roybe.5896:

Rasimir.6239:

phys.7689:

People have opened 10k-27k trick or treat bags, and not gonna the rare drops.

What I’d really be interested in is the amount of bags opened total across all servers, and the amount of minis found total compared to that. Unfortunately, only ANet has those numbers, and I doubt they’d ever release them. It’s the only real indication if the chance works out the way ANet envisioned it, no amount of anecdotal evidence on the forums can come close to that.

I am certain it is a beautiful Normal Distribution curve! The problem with RNG is that:

1. Humans cannot tell if RNG is ‘tight’ or ‘loose’. Las Vegas has studied this and realized they could tighten up all the RNG slot machines because people could not tell the difference, so it was a bonus to the bottom line ot make them tighter, soince there was no down side repercussions. This was an ancillary discussion on this NPR show…[http://technation.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-23T05_07_09-07_00]

2. RNG in MMO’s has become the de facto ‘reward’ system. Unfortunately, the only thing that is the reward in this system is the reinforcment of the brain’s dopamine based reward system.

Personally I see this as a problem of desire creation within a player base. Game devs want to create a strong desire in people to keep the player engaged enough to continue to buy their product. They can do this with either ‘good’ game design or ‘bad’ game design.

Good game design would be creating desire by adding new stories, content, game modes, strong characters, etc.

Bad game design is anything that is trying to utilize the more base motives of people. The easiest thing to program for is accessing the pathways of the brain that lead to addictive problems for those with a propensity to them, the brains natural reward pathway. Gambling type activities do this quite easily. The cycle of expectation, exhilaration, and payoff is quite compelling.

There are a lot of people that dispute these results. My boss is one of them. The problem with this study is that is only a simulation, real people aren’t involved. Another study was conducted by a different research team that shows that addicted gamblers (about 2% of all gamblers) can tell the difference.

Devata.6589:

Where did I say them trying to make money is a bad thing? I just say I don’t like the cash-shop approach because of some of the effects of what I just showed you one using purely facts.

I don’t say.. don’t make money, I say, make money in another way. But you know that as you end your post with that.

I am not sure what you mean with ‘just a cash-grab’ or where I did say that. They use the cash-shop to make money and it effects the game in a specific way. A way I consider bad and in fact a way many people seem to consider bad looking at the complains about the grind. What I just showed how at least partially that is factually linked to to cash-shop.

And there is a difference between using the cash-shop to earn your money and having a cash-shop.

The idea that making money with box-sales if over seems to be a little strange. It is still the most used way for most games. It’s just not done a lot in MMO’s but then again that has never been the case and there was a time (just a few years ago) nobody believed in F2P games (read.. cash-shops) while now that is the standard for MMO’s so who says box-sales won’t be the standard for mmo’s in the future?

The fact that the cash-shop way is the most popular at this moment does not stop me from going against it. If it’s bad, it’s bad and I will say it’s bad even if the whole world world would say it was good. I’m not somebody who just go’s with the flow of the masses. Anyway, luckily there are many people who dislike it. Many of them did come to GW2 because it was sold as B2P and had a good name for it’s B2P model with GW1.

GW2 would not have existed where it for GW1 using that model. It is what made them big.

None of which matters. I made a general post, not addressed to you specifically, and you responded. In that post and since, you have clearly failed to respond to most of the points I’ve made.

So, I’ll give it to you one more time — but don’t expect me to respond if you continue to talk about things other than what I posted.

Here it is, as simply as possible.

• Many items are available in GW2 via gold, either through the cash shop or the TP.
• The design intent behind this availability is clearly to make these items accessible to anyone who wants them.
• The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems.

That’s it. As to your points, I know you’d rather they sold expansions and put everything that’s in the gem store into the game instead. That’s not relevant to the point you decided to argue in the first place.

Shpongle.6025:

fellyn.5083:

What GW2 needs is elite areas like GW1 had.

Underworld
Fissure of Woe
Realm of Anguish
The Deep
Urgoz’s Warren
Slavers Exile

And so on. These areas can be rewarding and fun.

But that takes quite a lot of effort. So lets revamp how people purchase gems to make it more profitable for us.

We already have that. It’s called FOTM lvl 50

Ah yes FOTM 50, where I get a uninfused soldier ring for my trouble. Assuming my party doesn’t run into any of the potentially dungeon ending bugs.

Yes, so very rewarding.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be over in the corner, being ever so rewarded by my lack of any fractal skin since it originally launched.

Devata.6589:

Ashen.2907:

Devata.6589:

So thats not an unfounded insinuations that is a fact where the currency-grind is there directly because of the cash-shop.

Actually it is still a matter of opinion. Apply that same exact example to someone else and there may be no currency grind. If there is no currency grind then it is not there directly because of the cash shop.

The only way to get that item ingame is to grind a currency. How could that not be factual true for another person? It’s factual true for the game.

It is not grind for some people.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

Where did I say them trying to make money is a bad thing? I just say I don’t like the cash-shop approach because of some of the effects of what I just showed you one using purely facts.

I don’t say.. don’t make money, I say, make money in another way. But you know that as you end your post with that.

I am not sure what you mean with ‘just a cash-grab’ or where I did say that. They use the cash-shop to make money and it effects the game in a specific way. A way I consider bad and in fact a way many people seem to consider bad looking at the complains about the grind. What I just showed how at least partially that is factually linked to to cash-shop.

And there is a difference between using the cash-shop to earn your money and having a cash-shop.

The idea that making money with box-sales if over seems to be a little strange. It is still the most used way for most games. It’s just not done a lot in MMO’s but then again that has never been the case and there was a time (just a few years ago) nobody believed in F2P games (read.. cash-shops) while now that is the standard for MMO’s so who says box-sales won’t be the standard for mmo’s in the future?

The fact that the cash-shop way is the most popular at this moment does not stop me from going against it. If it’s bad, it’s bad and I will say it’s bad even if the whole world world would say it was good. I’m not somebody who just go’s with the flow of the masses. Anyway, luckily there are many people who dislike it. Many of them did come to GW2 because it was sold as B2P and had a good name for it’s B2P model with GW1.

GW2 would not have existed where it for GW1 using that model. It is what made them big.

None of which matters. I made a general post, not addressed to you specifically, and you responded. In that post and since, you have clearly failed to respond to most of the points I’ve made.

So, I’ll give it to you one more time — but don’t expect me to respond if you continue to talk about things other than what I posted.

Here it is, as simply as possible.

• Many items are available in GW2 via gold, either through the cash shop or the TP.
• The design intent behind this availability is clearly to make these items accessible to anyone who wants them.
• The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems.

That’s it. As to your points, I know you’d rather they sold expansions and put everything that’s in the gem store into the game instead. That’s not relevant to the point you decided to argue in the first place.

incorrect, the ability to buy gems for gold, is profitable, it allows them to make money off someones desire for items, who would not pay real money. They sell the gold they get from that to a player who has no desire for anything else in the gemstore.

Not only that, but they take a cut of the profits. Essentially, any item that is bought for gems—>gold→gems costs more gems to create. If you cant follow this, just realize something simple. Every single gem (aside from promotional gems or achievement gems) is paid for whether it came from gold or gems, at some point anet got paid 1.25 cents for every gem.

Point is, yeah they make money off the gold to gem conversion. Otherwise they would have to come up with some other system for selling gold that takes out as much money as it puts in, which is probably not feasible.

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

Where did I say them trying to make money is a bad thing? I just say I don’t like the cash-shop approach because of some of the effects of what I just showed you one using purely facts.

I don’t say.. don’t make money, I say, make money in another way. But you know that as you end your post with that.

I am not sure what you mean with ‘just a cash-grab’ or where I did say that. They use the cash-shop to make money and it effects the game in a specific way. A way I consider bad and in fact a way many people seem to consider bad looking at the complains about the grind. What I just showed how at least partially that is factually linked to to cash-shop.

And there is a difference between using the cash-shop to earn your money and having a cash-shop.

The idea that making money with box-sales if over seems to be a little strange. It is still the most used way for most games. It’s just not done a lot in MMO’s but then again that has never been the case and there was a time (just a few years ago) nobody believed in F2P games (read.. cash-shops) while now that is the standard for MMO’s so who says box-sales won’t be the standard for mmo’s in the future?

The fact that the cash-shop way is the most popular at this moment does not stop me from going against it. If it’s bad, it’s bad and I will say it’s bad even if the whole world world would say it was good. I’m not somebody who just go’s with the flow of the masses. Anyway, luckily there are many people who dislike it. Many of them did come to GW2 because it was sold as B2P and had a good name for it’s B2P model with GW1.

GW2 would not have existed where it for GW1 using that model. It is what made them big.

None of which matters. I made a general post, not addressed to you specifically, and you responded. In that post and since, you have clearly failed to respond to most of the points I’ve made.

So, I’ll give it to you one more time — but don’t expect me to respond if you continue to talk about things other than what I posted.

Here it is, as simply as possible.

• Many items are available in GW2 via gold, either through the cash shop or the TP.
• The design intent behind this availability is clearly to make these items accessible to anyone who wants them.
• The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems.

That’s it. As to your points, I know you’d rather they sold expansions and put everything that’s in the gem store into the game instead. That’s not relevant to the point you decided to argue in the first place.

incorrect, the ability to buy gems for gold, is profitable, it allows them to make money off someones desire for items, who would not pay real money. They sell the gold they get from that to a player who has no desire for anything else in the gemstore.

Not only that, but they take a cut of the profits. Essentially, any item that is bought for gems—>gold->gems costs more gems to create. If you cant follow this, just realize something simple. Every single gem (aside from promotional gems or achievement gems) is paid for whether it came from gold or gems, at some point anet got paid 1.25 cents for every gem.

Point is, yeah they make money off the gold to gem conversion. Otherwise they would have to come up with some other system for selling gold that takes out as much money as it puts in, which is probably not feasible.

The mistake in your math is that you forget that the gems that are obtain from gold are being recycled. They are not new gems.

DarcShriek.5829:

The mistake in your math is that you forget that the gems that are obtain from gold are being recycled. They are not new gems.

they are gems that are created solely for the purpose of trading with players. No one who buys gems and sells them for gold wanted anything in the store with those gems.
These are players anet would have been unable to monetize.
the people who create the supply of these gems desire gem store items, but they would not pay for them
These are players anet would have been unable to monetize.

and anet takes a charges in total more gems for the same item that is generated by this method.

To give an example, say you like customized T shirts, you go to a skateboard store, he has no T shirts, but he knows a guy who can make a customized T shirt for you, this guy never has money to buy stuff in the store. He charges you 30 bucks. Now he goes to T shirt guy, and gives him 20 bucks store credit to make the T shirt.
He has turned turned this other guys desire for skateboards, who he is normally unable to cash in on, into money, by letting him get store credit from you. He made 30 dollars he would not have been able to make if he didnt make this transaction. In fact he gets 10 extra dollars for setting up that transaction on top of that.

anet is still getting paid, it is profitable, dont think the store owner is doing it to be kind, he is doing it to make more money off the same merchandise.

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

… Lots of stuff I am skipping over cause its already been discussed many multiple of times but if you want me to reply to something specifically let me know not ignoring or avoiding just dont wanna get locked in a debate circle …

Let me give the example why it’s the worst option. Let’s say you want a specific skin in this item that drops from a champion bag at an extremely low rate. Then working directly working towards it is by farming those bags. But you likely have earned to gold to buy it by doing so before the item drops. So going for that item is the worst way.

Champion bag skins are a bit of a catch 22 true. Getting the item directly is farming just as much as getting the gold for it. But luckly we have the 3rd option, the 3rd option I’ve been advocating so much, currency as it is intended to be. Your nice weapons skin that drops from the champion bag costs dont know say 20g. You currently have 200 gold but we’re not going to outright buy it that would be boring. We’re going to earn 20g and buy it once we have 220g. I personally am a dynamic events person so I am going with playing in the open world. Strickly speaking we need 400 dynamic events to earn 20g but we can cut that down as until we earn out skin we’re going to sell stuff we earn even though generally I keep the mats for my crafting. That will probably cut the events needed by about 1/3 and not counting the mats you gather along the way and sell. All in all we’ll need approximately 280 events. Will do close to 25 events per day and it will take me 2 weeks to earn that 20g and buy that skin. I may take a break do a dungeon, a fractal may a few jumping puzzles and why not perhaps try to kill a couple of champions and see if I Get lucky and it drops. At the end of the day whatever i’ll still get closer. At the end of 2 weeks I’ll be happy because I did an effort and it feels I earn the skin. I still played the stuff I would have played had I not set my eyes on that skin. I didnt have to do any mindless grinding. I got the skin I wanted.

Sure if I farmed I could have got that skin in 2 – 3hrs instead of 2 weeks but what would that have got me? since I like open world stuff after I got the skin by farming gold now that I dont have a reward to strive for I will spend the next 2 weeks doing open world stuff with my new skin wishing I could earn my skin doing open world stuff rather then boring gold farms probably which ironically I already could do!

So your solution to the currency grind is… currency grind?

Oow and the stuff I like to do like JP’s don’t earn me a lot of money. What I also like is WvW but then mainly staying in a keep upgrading it and defending it. Running with the zerg would make me money, upgrading and defending a keep cost me money. The other thing I like to do is going directly after those rewards but we already concluded that was not really possible (in this case).

is playing 2 weeks of what you like doing really a grind?

of course you can go directly after the reward like I already explained a billion times but going after rewards directly that arent a common drop is always super grindy in absolutely any game.

If you love doing it then go on nothing wrong with that. I though your issue was primary with grind. If luck doesnt smile upon you in a few hours you can always buy it with the money you make while going directly after the reward, win/win

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

… Lots of stuff I am skipping over cause its already been discussed many multiple of times but if you want me to reply to something specifically let me know not ignoring or avoiding just dont wanna get locked in a debate circle …

Let me give the example why it’s the worst option. Let’s say you want a specific skin in this item that drops from a champion bag at an extremely low rate. Then working directly working towards it is by farming those bags. But you likely have earned to gold to buy it by doing so before the item drops. So going for that item is the worst way.

Champion bag skins are a bit of a catch 22 true. Getting the item directly is farming just as much as getting the gold for it. But luckly we have the 3rd option, the 3rd option I’ve been advocating so much, currency as it is intended to be. Your nice weapons skin that drops from the champion bag costs dont know say 20g. You currently have 200 gold but we’re not going to outright buy it that would be boring. We’re going to earn 20g and buy it once we have 220g. I personally am a dynamic events person so I am going with playing in the open world. Strickly speaking we need 400 dynamic events to earn 20g but we can cut that down as until we earn out skin we’re going to sell stuff we earn even though generally I keep the mats for my crafting. That will probably cut the events needed by about 1/3 and not counting the mats you gather along the way and sell. All in all we’ll need approximately 280 events. Will do close to 25 events per day and it will take me 2 weeks to earn that 20g and buy that skin. I may take a break do a dungeon, a fractal may a few jumping puzzles and why not perhaps try to kill a couple of champions and see if I Get lucky and it drops. At the end of the day whatever i’ll still get closer. At the end of 2 weeks I’ll be happy because I did an effort and it feels I earn the skin. I still played the stuff I would have played had I not set my eyes on that skin. I didnt have to do any mindless grinding. I got the skin I wanted.

Sure if I farmed I could have got that skin in 2 – 3hrs instead of 2 weeks but what would that have got me? since I like open world stuff after I got the skin by farming gold now that I dont have a reward to strive for I will spend the next 2 weeks doing open world stuff with my new skin wishing I could earn my skin doing open world stuff rather then boring gold farms probably which ironically I already could do!

So your solution to the currency grind is… currency grind?

Oow and the stuff I like to do like JP’s don’t earn me a lot of money. What I also like is WvW but then mainly staying in a keep upgrading it and defending it. Running with the zerg would make me money, upgrading and defending a keep cost me money. The other thing I like to do is going directly after those rewards but we already concluded that was not really possible (in this case).

is playing 2 weeks of what you like doing really a grind?

of course you can go directly after the reward like I already explained a billion times but going after rewards directly that arent a common drop is always super grindy in absolutely any game.

If you love doing it then go on nothing wrong with that. I though your issue was primary with grind. If luck doesnt smile upon you in a few hours you can always buy it with the money you make while going directly after the reward, win/win

the thing that you are totally missing is the distaste a person might feel for buying something.

You know how people say there is a different feeling from fishing up your dinner versus buying it in a store?
Or how some people enjoy doing home improvements themselves?

Satisfaction from a job well done, or prizes from winning a competition, finding something valuable hidden in an obscure place. These are the feelings some people are looking for in an adventure game. And for many items in this game, that is not an effecient means of achieving anything.

in fact very often, you could not hunt/obtain/earn something directly if you tried. Even in those cases, it is generally the worst method of achieving it.

he wants an adventure with rewards for the adventure. Not a paycheck where he buys everything.

All that would really have to change for him is have the primary method of obtaining many good/interesting items be specific tasks/enemies/places etc. They could be sold after that, but he would know the best way to get anything would be to hunt it, and gold would be a secondary way. Which is now often the opposite.

Devata.6589:

You earned 4 mini’s? What 4 exactly? 3 of the ones I referred to are only available in the cash-shop.

For someone who specifically loves to go after minis how can you not know there are 4 minis you can earn in this release?

Earned Mini Candy Corn Ghoulemental by completing the tricks and treat collection
Mini Zuzu, the Cat of Darkness dropped from a Trick or treat bag.

Mini Ghost Carlotta and Mini Bloody Prince Thorn I got enough candy corn and skulls/fangs that I can (and will) buy by the end of the event if they dont drop.

I also mentioned this years skins.

“For the 2012 skins you are grinding tickets (thats a currency) so no you are not working directly towards it. Like I said before, who are you fooling.”
and how do you get the tickets (just to be on the same page we’re talking about shiny foil candy wrapper here not black lion tickets) ? By playing absolutely any halloween content. You dont have to farm gold and buy the tickets if you dont want to. just play the content you want. Also for accuracy’s sake those arent technically currency cause they dont buy you anything, they’re technically tokens.

Devata.6589:

I never said you had to get them all. That would also not be the case if you worked directly towards them.. what you are not doing, you are grinding currency to get most of them.

I am playing content to get them I am not grinding anything. If there were 0 rewards what so ever I’d still use these brief 2 weeks we get of halloween to play as much of the tower, lunatic inquisition and the labyrinth. Does it matter that zuzu might drop from any monster in the labyrinth or that mob drops a bag that in turn can drop zuzu ? why having no intermediary bag makes it working directly towards but somehow the bag makes indirect? As for buying it directly I see it if you do a good enough effort and lady luck doesnt smile on you, you’d have earned it through your effort rather then through your luck. Why is that bad?

I’m actually positively surprised how little gambling there is this time during the event.

So far I’ve earned:
-Hex outfit
-6x 20 slot bag
-Recipes for all three weapon gifts (spider, moon, soul)
-Mask skin and mini elemental I already had

Maybe today I’ll get more 20 slotters or Zuzu. Don’t really want the cat but might as well take it.

No gems or gambling involved.

Edit: Oh and also I’ve found some of those lottery tickets so might even get surprised after the event! Probably not tho

phys.7689:

the thing that you are totally missing is the distaste a person might feel for buying something.

You know how people say there is a different feeling from fishing up your dinner versus buying it in a store?
Or how some people enjoy doing home improvements themselves?

What is there too miss? you dont want to buy it, dont buy it. If it drops be happy you got it if not okey though luck better luck next time. Why do you want to force what you like on everyone else when you both can have what you like? I love your quote for this really… “You know how people say there is a different feeling from fishing up your dinner versus buying it in a store?” How would you feel if those people were trying to petition the world to stop selling fish because they like to catch their own fish to eat? It would be illogical. You like to catch your own food you do just that you dont need to be forced into it by having no other choice. Why is it different here?

phys.7689:

Satisfaction from a job well done, or prizes from winning a competition, finding something valuable hidden in an obscure place. These are the feelings some people are looking for in an adventure game. And for many items in this game, that is not an effecient means of achieving anything.

I find this a bit contradictory. On one side you want the sanctification of achieving something but on the other hand you want it to be provided in the most efficient.

You know people love to scale mountains but getting on top on food isnt the most efficient way to do it. They could just catch a nice comfortable helicopter and get dropped right on top. Why dont they do it? well some do because they’re more interested in what view and the experience of being up there. Other dont because they value getting there on their own more the goal itself. Again why do players need to be forced into doing what they claim they want? why is it that hard to choose for yourself?

phys.7689:

in fact very often, you could not hunt/obtain/earn something directly if you tried. Even in those cases, it is generally the worst method of achieving it.

Thats not true anything that can be bought can be earned in this game one way or another. Doing it the proper way will most definitely be the worst method of achieving it but thats true universally. There is a reason why honest people who work hard dont generally achieve the level of luxury you see from people who live a life of crime. Or the reason why there is a life of crime in the first place. Doing things properly is generally the most in efficient way. Think how long it would take to save enough money to buy a luxury car or how quick it would be to steal one for example!

phys.7689:

he wants an adventure with rewards for the adventure. Not a paycheck where he buys everything.

Then that’s what he should do. You dont need to remove paychecks from people who’d rather have a paycheck and they’re given the freedom of choosing what they spend it on.

phys.7689:

All that would really have to change for him is have the primary method of obtaining many good/interesting items be specific tasks/enemies/places etc. They could be sold after that, but he would know the best way to get anything would be to hunt it, and gold would be a secondary way. Which is now often the opposite.

This is actually an interesting issue. Its there you’re right but its a bit perplexing. I think its an issue caused by player’s mistake and farming. I mean some things take an effort to get yet people sell them for a couple of gold. Others things take an effort to get but they sell for 100s of gold. why is that? the low prices are probably mistakes players make not really thinking over what they should actually charge. The high prices are probably because of farmers. 200g is like 200 hrs of game time for someone who doesnt farm but less then 20hrs for farmers. This is an issue you’re right, technically it shouldnt matter much whether you try to earn something directly then playing other content to achieve it. I wouldnt say this issue is caused by the game though its more a player induced issue the way I see it.

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

lordkrall.7241:

….The Labyrinth available right now is a rather good way to get rather much money….

this.

it’s rewarding and isn’t rng-based………you get tons of bags (and mats). you get more than enough candy corn to convert them to “cobs” and buy the new items that the halloween vendor sells.

there will always be some level of rng “gambling” in the gem store/game……they need to make RL money (some people get a thrill out of gambling). it’s only lame when that is the way most of the event rewards are earned.

that isn’t the case here. there are plenty of non-rng rewards that are earned by playing the game.

It’s still just grinding for currency.

which has nothing to do with “rng-gambing”….or the thread topic. thanks for nothing.

But it is what lordkrall talked about where you reacted on.

Also getting the items from those bags (The two mini’s that can drop and the tickets for the 2012 Halloween skins) are still gables. Like I did say before, because of the high drop-rate of the bag you get a average that sort of hides the gable but it’s still there.

That highly depends on the situation. If you could only get them from the bags and they were not tradable then yes it would be entirely gambling.

If they are tradable then its not strictly speaking just gambling… the rng part would be merely an attempt to the reward for free because chances are its going to be quite expensive to buy off tp.

This year they went a step further. You can also buy it off an npc vendor. You get an average of 12 candy corns per tot bag in addition to a chance for each of those rewards. which means 1000 candy corns (or 1 candy corn cob) in about 80 bags. You can easy get that much (actually more) in 1hr. You can use that to buy the rewards from that vendor if luck doesnt smile on you. Its basically a mini per 6 hrs of labyrinth cleansing. You also get skulls, teeth etc.. which can also be used instead of the candy corn cobs for some of the rewards.

So yeah you’re gambling to get the reward for free but at the same time there is an element of 0 gambling in that while you’re gambling you’re making direct progress towards the rewards. I personally love this approach and hope they keep it up. You’re constantly getting that rush… will I get lucky will that thing I am after drop? but if it doesnt you’re not just wasting your time you’re getting closer to it anyway.

Galen Grey.4709:

This is actually an interesting issue. Its there you’re right but its a bit perplexing. I think its an issue caused by player’s mistake and farming. I mean some things take an effort to get yet people sell them for a couple of gold. Others things take an effort to get but they sell for 100s of gold. why is that? the low prices are probably mistakes players make not really thinking over what they should actually charge. The high prices are probably because of farmers. 200g is like 200 hrs of game time for someone who doesnt farm but less then 20hrs for farmers. This is an issue you’re right, technically it shouldnt matter much whether you try to earn something directly then playing other content to achieve it. I wouldnt say this issue is caused by the game though its more a player induced issue the way I see it.

its caused by a reward structure that gives players a lot of stuff they dont need, that they then have to sell to get the things they want, but cant go out and get themselves.

IRL people get confused, but the best way to get anything is to get it directly. not to work and pay cash for it.
you want to fix your sink? it will be cheaper if you do it yourself
you want to make cars? the car company makes them for less than you buy them for.
you want to eat vegetables? its cheaper to grow them yourself.

this game is designed where everyone can get anything fairly randomly, this makes them have to have lower rates, and it also makes it unlikely you will get anything specific you want, this means you HAVE to sell a bunch of crap (remember limited inventory, and you didnt need it anyhow) to get the stuff you want.

This is why players often dont sell things at their real value, they have no idea what their real value is. They arent in the business of selling stuff, they are just following whatever the market says.

Basically things work the way they do because they designed the games item distribution the way they did. Its why the game feels like a big gamble for anything good, mostly a grind for gold, where best gold comes from killing a lot of weak easy stuff in large groups. This is the natural result of the item design.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

lordkrall.7241:

….The Labyrinth available right now is a rather good way to get rather much money….

this.

it’s rewarding and isn’t rng-based………you get tons of bags (and mats). you get more than enough candy corn to convert them to “cobs” and buy the new items that the halloween vendor sells.

there will always be some level of rng “gambling” in the gem store/game……they need to make RL money (some people get a thrill out of gambling). it’s only lame when that is the way most of the event rewards are earned.

that isn’t the case here. there are plenty of non-rng rewards that are earned by playing the game.

It’s still just grinding for currency.

which has nothing to do with “rng-gambing”….or the thread topic. thanks for nothing.

But it is what lordkrall talked about where you reacted on.

Also getting the items from those bags (The two mini’s that can drop and the tickets for the 2012 Halloween skins) are still gables. Like I did say before, because of the high drop-rate of the bag you get a average that sort of hides the gable but it’s still there.

That highly depends on the situation. If you could only get them from the bags and they were not tradable then yes it would be entirely gambling.

If they are tradable then its not strictly speaking just gambling… the rng part would be merely an attempt to the reward for free because chances are its going to be quite expensive to buy off tp.

This year they went a step further. You can also buy it off an npc vendor. You get an average of 12 candy corns per tot bag in addition to a chance for each of those rewards. which means 1000 candy corns (or 1 candy corn cob) in about 80 bags. You can easy get that much (actually more) in 1hr. You can use that to buy the rewards from that vendor if luck doesnt smile on you. Its basically a mini per 6 hrs of labyrinth cleansing. You also get skulls, teeth etc.. which can also be used instead of the candy corn cobs for some of the rewards.

So yeah you’re gambling to get the reward for free but at the same time there is an element of 0 gambling in that while you’re gambling you’re making direct progress towards the rewards. I personally love this approach and hope they keep it up. You’re constantly getting that rush… will I get lucky will that thing I am after drop? but if it doesnt you’re not just wasting your time you’re getting closer to it anyway.

and you can get all the drops from the vendor? interesting

phys.7689:

incorrect, the ability to buy gems for gold, is profitable, it allows them to make money off someones desire for items, who would not pay real money. They sell the gold they get from that to a player who has no desire for anything else in the gemstore.

Not only that, but they take a cut of the profits. Essentially, any item that is bought for gems—>gold->gems costs more gems to create. If you cant follow this, just realize something simple. Every single gem (aside from promotional gems or achievement gems) is paid for whether it came from gold or gems, at some point anet got paid 1.25 cents for every gem.

Point is, yeah they make money off the gold to gem conversion. Otherwise they would have to come up with some other system for selling gold that takes out as much money as it puts in, which is probably not feasible.

You need 1 premise for this to be true. That every gem sold to player is actually bought. I am pretty sure this is not the case. Even on day 1 you could exchange gold… well silver back then for gems. At no point in the game’s live has there been a situation were people tried to buy gems for gold but there were none available. I find it really really really hard to believe more people were buying gems to sell in the first week of the game then there were people trying to buy gems to hoard for later on. There just wasnt any motivation for people to sell gems in the first couple of days and every reason in the world buy as many as possible as quickly as possible.

Not just that but the exchange rate has been increasing and increasing which technically means more gems are being bought with gold then they are being bought and sold with real money. Yet not once did gems run out.

I think this is a clear indication that gems sold arent restricted to a pool of actual gems being purchased by players. There is probably an infinite number of gems and people actually buying the gems simply brings the price down but every gem bought with gold will not mean a player actually paid for it.

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

lordkrall.7241:

….The Labyrinth available right now is a rather good way to get rather much money….

this.

it’s rewarding and isn’t rng-based………you get tons of bags (and mats). you get more than enough candy corn to convert them to “cobs” and buy the new items that the halloween vendor sells.

there will always be some level of rng “gambling” in the gem store/game……they need to make RL money (some people get a thrill out of gambling). it’s only lame when that is the way most of the event rewards are earned.

that isn’t the case here. there are plenty of non-rng rewards that are earned by playing the game.

It’s still just grinding for currency.

which has nothing to do with “rng-gambing”….or the thread topic. thanks for nothing.

But it is what lordkrall talked about where you reacted on.

Also getting the items from those bags (The two mini’s that can drop and the tickets for the 2012 Halloween skins) are still gables. Like I did say before, because of the high drop-rate of the bag you get a average that sort of hides the gable but it’s still there.

That highly depends on the situation. If you could only get them from the bags and they were not tradable then yes it would be entirely gambling.

If they are tradable then its not strictly speaking just gambling… the rng part would be merely an attempt to the reward for free because chances are its going to be quite expensive to buy off tp.

This year they went a step further. You can also buy it off an npc vendor. You get an average of 12 candy corns per tot bag in addition to a chance for each of those rewards. which means 1000 candy corns (or 1 candy corn cob) in about 80 bags. You can easy get that much (actually more) in 1hr. You can use that to buy the rewards from that vendor if luck doesnt smile on you. Its basically a mini per 6 hrs of labyrinth cleansing. You also get skulls, teeth etc.. which can also be used instead of the candy corn cobs for some of the rewards.

So yeah you’re gambling to get the reward for free but at the same time there is an element of 0 gambling in that while you’re gambling you’re making direct progress towards the rewards. I personally love this approach and hope they keep it up. You’re constantly getting that rush… will I get lucky will that thing I am after drop? but if it doesnt you’re not just wasting your time you’re getting closer to it anyway.

and you can get all the drops from the vendor? interesting

with the exception of the necklace, Mini Gwynefyrdd and old pillowcase yes… in the case of the gifts you can craft them rather then buying them from the vendor of course. why? what where you thinking of?

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

incorrect, the ability to buy gems for gold, is profitable, it allows them to make money off someones desire for items, who would not pay real money. They sell the gold they get from that to a player who has no desire for anything else in the gemstore.

Not only that, but they take a cut of the profits. Essentially, any item that is bought for gems—>gold->gems costs more gems to create. If you cant follow this, just realize something simple. Every single gem (aside from promotional gems or achievement gems) is paid for whether it came from gold or gems, at some point anet got paid 1.25 cents for every gem.

Point is, yeah they make money off the gold to gem conversion. Otherwise they would have to come up with some other system for selling gold that takes out as much money as it puts in, which is probably not feasible.

You need 1 premise for this to be true. That every gem sold to player is actually bought. I am pretty sure this is not the case. Even on day 1 you could exchange gold… well silver back then for gems. At no point in the game’s live has there been a situation were people tried to buy gems for gold but there were none available. I find it really really really hard to believe more people were buying gems to sell in the first week of the game then there were people trying to buy gems to hoard for later on. There just wasnt any motivation for people to sell gems in the first couple of days and every reason in the world buy as many as possible as quickly as possible.

Not just that but the exchange rate has been increasing and increasing which technically means more gems are being bought with gold then they are being bought and sold with real money. Yet not once did gems run out.

I think this is a clear indication that gems sold arent restricted to a pool of actual gems being purchased by players. There is probably an infinite number of gems and people actually buying the gems simply brings the price down but every gem bought with gold will not mean a player actually paid for it.

john smith said the orginal gems they seeded the exchange with are long since gone. And he also said the gem exchange no longer has created gold or gems in it. While i thought it might be infinite, he flat out said it was not.

Basically the guy in charge says that it they are not created, and everything in the pool is long since past the initial seeded amounts. this means every gem is paid for, aside for achievement point gems, and probably gems they give out for promotions.

as for the not running out, people think of the rates as being about the amount in one versus the amount in the other, but its more about the flow in, versus flow out.

if 100 gems are added and 10000 gold is added the rate matches. The reason it doesnt run out is because the price gets higher the greater the difference in flow. All that gold coming in becomes less effective, and some people begin to opt out on one side, on the other side people start opting in more.

so really the costs show the ratio, of in to out, and adapt to balance them at all times. It doesnt show the actual magnitude.
So lets say the rate is 1 gem for 50 silver. there could be have been 1000000 gems added in one day just means there was 50000000 silver added as well.

Anyhow it could work otherwise, but he basically said it works that way, and that the gem or the gold could in fact theoretically run out.

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

Devata.6589:

Relshdan.6854:

lordkrall.7241:

….The Labyrinth available right now is a rather good way to get rather much money….

this.

it’s rewarding and isn’t rng-based………you get tons of bags (and mats). you get more than enough candy corn to convert them to “cobs” and buy the new items that the halloween vendor sells.

there will always be some level of rng “gambling” in the gem store/game……they need to make RL money (some people get a thrill out of gambling). it’s only lame when that is the way most of the event rewards are earned.

that isn’t the case here. there are plenty of non-rng rewards that are earned by playing the game.

It’s still just grinding for currency.

which has nothing to do with “rng-gambing”….or the thread topic. thanks for nothing.

But it is what lordkrall talked about where you reacted on.

Also getting the items from those bags (The two mini’s that can drop and the tickets for the 2012 Halloween skins) are still gables. Like I did say before, because of the high drop-rate of the bag you get a average that sort of hides the gable but it’s still there.

That highly depends on the situation. If you could only get them from the bags and they were not tradable then yes it would be entirely gambling.

If they are tradable then its not strictly speaking just gambling… the rng part would be merely an attempt to the reward for free because chances are its going to be quite expensive to buy off tp.

This year they went a step further. You can also buy it off an npc vendor. You get an average of 12 candy corns per tot bag in addition to a chance for each of those rewards. which means 1000 candy corns (or 1 candy corn cob) in about 80 bags. You can easy get that much (actually more) in 1hr. You can use that to buy the rewards from that vendor if luck doesnt smile on you. Its basically a mini per 6 hrs of labyrinth cleansing. You also get skulls, teeth etc.. which can also be used instead of the candy corn cobs for some of the rewards.

So yeah you’re gambling to get the reward for free but at the same time there is an element of 0 gambling in that while you’re gambling you’re making direct progress towards the rewards. I personally love this approach and hope they keep it up. You’re constantly getting that rush… will I get lucky will that thing I am after drop? but if it doesnt you’re not just wasting your time you’re getting closer to it anyway.

and you can get all the drops from the vendor? interesting

with the exception of the necklace, Mini Gwynefyrdd and old pillowcase yes… in the case of the gifts you can craft them rather then buying them from the vendor of course. why? what where you thinking of?

nah i just find it to be an interesting approach, that is probably overall better than the usual pure gamble. but i havent really investigated it.

Novuake.2691:

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

You can click on the name and see the persons post history. You will find that the ones with huge long posts have huge long posts for in some cases two years. Nothing has changed in their huge long posts in that whole time.

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

This is actually an interesting issue. Its there you’re right but its a bit perplexing. I think its an issue caused by player’s mistake and farming. I mean some things take an effort to get yet people sell them for a couple of gold. Others things take an effort to get but they sell for 100s of gold. why is that? the low prices are probably mistakes players make not really thinking over what they should actually charge. The high prices are probably because of farmers. 200g is like 200 hrs of game time for someone who doesnt farm but less then 20hrs for farmers. This is an issue you’re right, technically it shouldnt matter much whether you try to earn something directly then playing other content to achieve it. I wouldnt say this issue is caused by the game though its more a player induced issue the way I see it.

its caused by a reward structure that gives players a lot of stuff they dont need, that they then have to sell to get the things they want, but cant go out and get themselves.

IRL people get confused, but the best way to get anything is to get it directly. not to work and pay cash for it.
you want to fix your sink? it will be cheaper if you do it yourself
you want to make cars? the car company makes them for less than you buy them for.
you want to eat vegetables? its cheaper to grow them yourself.

this game is designed where everyone can get anything fairly randomly, this makes them have to have lower rates, and it also makes it unlikely you will get anything specific you want, this means you HAVE to sell a bunch of crap (remember limited inventory, and you didnt need it anyhow) to get the stuff you want.

This is why players often dont sell things at their real value, they have no idea what their real value is. They arent in the business of selling stuff, they are just following whatever the market says.

Basically things work the way they do because they designed the games item distribution the way they did. Its why the game feels like a big gamble for anything good, mostly a grind for gold, where best gold comes from killing a lot of weak easy stuff in large groups. This is the natural result of the item design.

For the average person it would cost much more to make their own car than to buy it from a manufacturer. The same is true for growing produce in the quantities that compare to what many purchase. Also can be true for sink repairs for that matter.

Also, nothing has a, “real value,” other than what, “the market says.”

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

• The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems.

incorrect, the ability to buy gems for gold, is profitable, it allows them to make money off someones desire for items, who would not pay real money. They sell the gold they get from that to a player who has no desire for anything else in the gemstore.

Not only that, but they take a cut of the profits. Essentially, any item that is bought for gems—>gold->gems costs more gems to create. If you cant follow this, just realize something simple. Every single gem (aside from promotional gems or achievement gems) is paid for whether it came from gold or gems, at some point anet got paid 1.25 cents for every gem.

Point is, yeah they make money off the gold to gem conversion. Otherwise they would have to come up with some other system for selling gold that takes out as much money as it puts in, which is probably not feasible.

I didn’t say they did not make money. I said they’re not maximizing profits. I believe that, were there no gold-for-gem exchange, they would gain more in sales from people who currently get their gems via gold than they would lose from those who buy gems to exchange for gold now.

Gold-for-gems serves several purposes in the game:

• Competes with 3rd party gold sellers, giving those who want to buy gold an outlet that will not get them banned if caught
• Facilitates many rewards being available regardless of play style
• Gold sink
• Makes ANet money

So, OK, people don’t like the gold-for-rewards part. They still benefit from reduction in gold sellers and the gold sink. If the system were a “cash grab” there would be no merit to it at all. Since this is clearly not the case, my point stands.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

~

None of which matters. I made a general post, not addressed to you specifically, and you responded. In that post and since, you have clearly failed to respond to most of the points I’ve made.

So, I’ll give it to you one more time — but don’t expect me to respond if you continue to talk about things other than what I posted.

Here it is, as simply as possible.

• Many items are available in GW2 via gold, either through the cash shop or the TP.
• The design intent behind this availability is clearly to make these items accessible to anyone who wants them.
• The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems.

That’s it. As to your points, I know you’d rather they sold expansions and put everything that’s in the gem store into the game instead. That’s not relevant to the point you decided to argue in the first place.

I very much addressed your answer. You simply didn’t like my answers. Thats something else.

" * Many items are available in GW2 via gold, either through the cash shop or the TP."
Yeah that was my complain remember. About how everything (thats a hyberbole) is a gold-grind.

" * The design intent behind this availability is clearly to make these items accessible to anyone who wants them."
Lol, I am going to quote you as an answer.
“However, what I do post in opposition to is when you venture into hypotheses about ANet’s motives. "

" * The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems."

On what do you base that?
The fact that you can convert money both ways means also means money becomes more important what could stimulate the gems sales to convert to gold. In addition, not all people who convert gold to gems would pay for anything they now get with real cash.
Lastly it’s also marketing technical interesting. They get away with more cash-shop things by pointing to the "heey you can convert gold to gems.” As they for example use as an excuse for selling the story episodes by gems. So there are multiple marketing technical (read financial) benefits of doing that.

If we believe you the negatives (people who now convert gold to gems but would else have spend money) out-way those. Where is your proof of that? It’s just an assumption you are stating as a fact here.

What we can conclude as a fact is that with no regular expansions and the game being over 2 years old the cash-shop is the main source of income and so we can even conclude that that means they do look into increasing profit for that. It’s not so strange to then think that effects the game. Whether the gold grind in this game is part of that I can indeed not proof.

“That’s not relevant to the point you decided to argue in the first place.”
There where multiple points, so i’m not sure what point you are referring to. However if I refer to the same post where I did bring this up I only stated it as a side note. Because the one does effect the other. (and so is relevant) Like I just said.. They are trying to maximize gem-sales and that does effect the games in some ways including making it a more gold grindy game. Thats a fact because if you want any item they put in the cash-shop (what they do with many items because of the cash-shop focus) the only ingame way to get it is to grind gold. So I addressed that because it’s relevant for that.

Ashen.2907:

Devata.6589:

Ashen.2907:

Devata.6589:

So thats not an unfounded insinuations that is a fact where the currency-grind is there directly because of the cash-shop.

Actually it is still a matter of opinion. Apply that same exact example to someone else and there may be no currency grind. If there is no currency grind then it is not there directly because of the cash shop.

The only way to get that item ingame is to grind a currency. How could that not be factual true for another person? It’s factual true for the game.

It is not grind for some people.

Lol.. You need to collect money for it in stead of being able to earn it direly in the game. This better for you?

Novuake.2691:

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

If people don’t address negative things (and Anet does not fix them) you might not be enjoying your second Halloween. So be happy that people who are willing to look into the future do.

Galen Grey.4709:

is playing 2 weeks of what you like doing really a grind?

of course you can go directly after the reward like I already explained a billion times but going after rewards directly that arent a common drop is always super grindy in absolutely any game.

If you love doing it then go on nothing wrong with that. I though your issue was primary with grind. If luck doesnt smile upon you in a few hours you can always buy it with the money you make while going directly after the reward, win/win

“of course you can go directly after the reward like I” This is factually wrong for all items in the cash-shop, it’s also factually wrong for all items you can only buy from a vendor for some currency and factually correct but realistically still wrong for the items that do drop in a very general way (like in loot bags dropped by many many mobs) but with a extremely, extremely low drop-rate. In general these items still drop a lot because they drop on so many mobs (that then get farmed by so many people).

When the item would have a higher drop-rate (still rare) but only drop by one specific mob / boss/ content in one place then the total number of drops in the world would still be the same, likely even less then now. However because you can focus on that specific content you can increase the change it drops for you to nearly 100%. So thats where you are factually right, but realistically wrong. Because you can then not in a realistically way work towards it.

A lot items are distributed in the cash-shop and a lot of item are distributed as vendor only sales and a lot of items are distributed with the general drop by many mobs, usually in bags but a very very very low droprate.

And then there are of course the items that do drop from specific content.

Only for that last one you can factually and realistically work directly for them in the game.

The total number of rewards in the game that are rewarded in this last way is however much lower as the other 3 ways.

I don’t know if you don’t want to get this (and so are fooling yourself) or you really don’t get this. Anyway, it’s the last time I explained it to you.

“is playing 2 weeks of what you like doing really a grind?” I would love to do would for example be the Halloween 2012 dungeon that would have a rare (but obtainable) drop-rate for one of the Halloween skins. Like I said.. what I like to do is work directly towards content what is not an option for most things as I just explained again.

Oow and I have never earned the gold I would need to buy those items. Thats likely because the people who do the most rewarding gold grind things will drive up the price to high for people who do not do that. Since I tent to not like those things I never make that amount of gold.
JP’s are not that rewarding and defending and upgrading a keep only cost me money.
But that’s just a side note.

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

… Lots of stuff I am skipping over cause its already been discussed many multiple of times but if you want me to reply to something specifically let me know not ignoring or avoiding just dont wanna get locked in a debate circle …

Let me give the example why it’s the worst option. Let’s say you want a specific skin in this item that drops from a champion bag at an extremely low rate. Then working directly working towards it is by farming those bags. But you likely have earned to gold to buy it by doing so before the item drops. So going for that item is the worst way.

Champion bag skins are a bit of a catch 22 true. Getting the item directly is farming just as much as getting the gold for it. But luckly we have the 3rd option, the 3rd option I’ve been advocating so much, currency as it is intended to be. Your nice weapons skin that drops from the champion bag costs dont know say 20g. You currently have 200 gold but we’re not going to outright buy it that would be boring. We’re going to earn 20g and buy it once we have 220g. I personally am a dynamic events person so I am going with playing in the open world. Strickly speaking we need 400 dynamic events to earn 20g but we can cut that down as until we earn out skin we’re going to sell stuff we earn even though generally I keep the mats for my crafting. That will probably cut the events needed by about 1/3 and not counting the mats you gather along the way and sell. All in all we’ll need approximately 280 events. Will do close to 25 events per day and it will take me 2 weeks to earn that 20g and buy that skin. I may take a break do a dungeon, a fractal may a few jumping puzzles and why not perhaps try to kill a couple of champions and see if I Get lucky and it drops. At the end of the day whatever i’ll still get closer. At the end of 2 weeks I’ll be happy because I did an effort and it feels I earn the skin. I still played the stuff I would have played had I not set my eyes on that skin. I didnt have to do any mindless grinding. I got the skin I wanted.

Sure if I farmed I could have got that skin in 2 – 3hrs instead of 2 weeks but what would that have got me? since I like open world stuff after I got the skin by farming gold now that I dont have a reward to strive for I will spend the next 2 weeks doing open world stuff with my new skin wishing I could earn my skin doing open world stuff rather then boring gold farms probably which ironically I already could do!

So your solution to the currency grind is… currency grind?

Oow and the stuff I like to do like JP’s don’t earn me a lot of money. What I also like is WvW but then mainly staying in a keep upgrading it and defending it. Running with the zerg would make me money, upgrading and defending a keep cost me money. The other thing I like to do is going directly after those rewards but we already concluded that was not really possible (in this case).

is playing 2 weeks of what you like doing really a grind?

of course you can go directly after the reward like I already explained a billion times but going after rewards directly that arent a common drop is always super grindy in absolutely any game.

If you love doing it then go on nothing wrong with that. I though your issue was primary with grind. If luck doesnt smile upon you in a few hours you can always buy it with the money you make while going directly after the reward, win/win

the thing that you are totally missing is the distaste a person might feel for buying something.

You know how people say there is a different feeling from fishing up your dinner versus buying it in a store?
Or how some people enjoy doing home improvements themselves?

Satisfaction from a job well done, or prizes from winning a competition, finding something valuable hidden in an obscure place. These are the feelings some people are looking for in an adventure game. And for many items in this game, that is not an effecient means of achieving anything.

in fact very often, you could not hunt/obtain/earn something directly if you tried. Even in those cases, it is generally the worst method of achieving it.

he wants an adventure with rewards for the adventure. Not a paycheck where he buys everything.

All that would really have to change for him is have the primary method of obtaining many good/interesting items be specific tasks/enemies/places etc. They could be sold after that, but he would know the best way to get anything would be to hunt it, and gold would be a secondary way. Which is now often the opposite.

This indeed.

Problem is that Galen seems to believe (or makes himself believe?) that many items are really obtainable directly in that way in GW2. While thats of course not the case.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

You earned 4 mini’s? What 4 exactly? 3 of the ones I referred to are only available in the cash-shop.

For someone who specifically loves to go after minis how can you not know there are 4 minis you can earn in this release?

Earned Mini Candy Corn Ghoulemental by completing the tricks and treat collection
Mini Zuzu, the Cat of Darkness dropped from a Trick or treat bag.

Mini Ghost Carlotta and Mini Bloody Prince Thorn I got enough candy corn and skulls/fangs that I can (and will) buy by the end of the event if they dont drop.

I also mentioned this years skins.

“For the 2012 skins you are grinding tickets (thats a currency) so no you are not working directly towards it. Like I said before, who are you fooling.”
and how do you get the tickets (just to be on the same page we’re talking about shiny foil candy wrapper here not black lion tickets) ? By playing absolutely any halloween content. You dont have to farm gold and buy the tickets if you dont want to. just play the content you want. Also for accuracy’s sake those arent technically currency cause they dont buy you anything, they’re technically tokens.

Devata.6589:

I never said you had to get them all. That would also not be the case if you worked directly towards them.. what you are not doing, you are grinding currency to get most of them.

I am playing content to get them I am not grinding anything. If there were 0 rewards what so ever I’d still use these brief 2 weeks we get of halloween to play as much of the tower, lunatic inquisition and the labyrinth. Does it matter that zuzu might drop from any monster in the labyrinth or that mob drops a bag that in turn can drop zuzu ? why having no intermediary bag makes it working directly towards but somehow the bag makes indirect? As for buying it directly I see it if you do a good enough effort and lady luck doesnt smile on you, you’d have earned it through your effort rather then through your luck. Why is that bad?

Mini Ghost Carlotta and Mini Bloody Prince Thorn are from last year.

I talked about the Candy Corn Ghoulemental, Zuzu, Gwynefyrdd and the 3 chas-shop mini’s. Oow my love for things like mini’s does not exist anymore.. Not in GW2 because they are all just grinding gold.. well most are. What I said is that I did like to do that in other mmo’s. You know where you do earn them with specific content.

No not by playing just some content. By grinding bags and if you do not do the stuff that rewards the best you end up with the least amount of those tickets (Candy wrappers yes) meaning your have a much lower change of it.

But then there is a problem, the content I do like to do is something where I can obtain something directly. And thats not really here is it. I did all my Halloween stuff and have 3 of those wrappers. In addition also this is not a direct way of earning those weapons. Now if those weapons had a rare but reasonable drop-rate in the Halloween dungeon I would likely still be doing that because I liked it.

Phys explained why it matters. Maybe his explanation works better for you?

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

This is actually an interesting issue. Its there you’re right but its a bit perplexing. I think its an issue caused by player’s mistake and farming. I mean some things take an effort to get yet people sell them for a couple of gold. Others things take an effort to get but they sell for 100s of gold. why is that? the low prices are probably mistakes players make not really thinking over what they should actually charge. The high prices are probably because of farmers. 200g is like 200 hrs of game time for someone who doesnt farm but less then 20hrs for farmers. This is an issue you’re right, technically it shouldnt matter much whether you try to earn something directly then playing other content to achieve it. I wouldnt say this issue is caused by the game though its more a player induced issue the way I see it.

its caused by a reward structure that gives players a lot of stuff they dont need, that they then have to sell to get the things they want, but cant go out and get themselves.

IRL people get confused, but the best way to get anything is to get it directly. not to work and pay cash for it.
you want to fix your sink? it will be cheaper if you do it yourself
you want to make cars? the car company makes them for less than you buy them for.
you want to eat vegetables? its cheaper to grow them yourself.

this game is designed where everyone can get anything fairly randomly, this makes them have to have lower rates, and it also makes it unlikely you will get anything specific you want, this means you HAVE to sell a bunch of crap (remember limited inventory, and you didnt need it anyhow) to get the stuff you want.

This is why players often dont sell things at their real value, they have no idea what their real value is. They arent in the business of selling stuff, they are just following whatever the market says.

Basically things work the way they do because they designed the games item distribution the way they did. Its why the game feels like a big gamble for anything good, mostly a grind for gold, where best gold comes from killing a lot of weak easy stuff in large groups. This is the natural result of the item design.

For the average person it would cost much more to make their own car than to buy it from a manufacturer. The same is true for growing produce in the quantities that compare to what many purchase. Also can be true for sink repairs for that matter.

Also, nothing has a, “real value,” other than what, “the market says.”

for the average person, it costs more because they are not the profressionals. They have not the skills, or the knowhow, or access to the materials, but for those that do, it is still cheaper to build it yourself. Even now, there are car hobbyists who can build a car for substantially less. GW2 tends not to work this way. Also, making produce in your backyard is still cheaper than buying it at a store, even at low yields. See the thing is, the people who are professionals set their prices, based on what they think their time/abilities are worth, and they optimize thier tasks. The Supply in gw2 tends to be generated randomly. Almost every item produced has a signifigant portion of its supply given by people who had no intention, nor desire for said item.

Also actually things do have real value other than what the market says. There are tons of ineffeciencies in the market, that TP players and merchant types take advanatge off. For example, a long time ago it was actually profitable to buy wood and salvage it. Peolple didnt actually know what wood was worth. There are times when it was more profitable to salvage ectos for crystaline dust, on average.

It happens very often that something is worth more than it is priced for. Just because you find someone who doesnt know what they can do with an item doesnt mean that is its true value.

Yargesh.4965:

Novuake.2691:

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

You can click on the name and see the persons post history. You will find that the ones with huge long posts have huge long posts for in some cases two years. Nothing has changed in their huge long posts in that whole time.

So those people are not just complaining to complain but have specifics concerns to keep talking about. Until they give up, don’t care or Anet fixes it.

Devata.6589:

Yargesh.4965:

Novuake.2691:

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

You can click on the name and see the persons post history. You will find that the ones with huge long posts have huge long posts for in some cases two years. Nothing has changed in their huge long posts in that whole time.

So those people are not just complaining to complain but have specifics concerns to keep talking about. Until they give up, don’t care or Anet fixes it.

It’s called having an obsession. It’s very pretty.

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

• The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems.

incorrect, the ability to buy gems for gold, is profitable, it allows them to make money off someones desire for items, who would not pay real money. They sell the gold they get from that to a player who has no desire for anything else in the gemstore.

Not only that, but they take a cut of the profits. Essentially, any item that is bought for gems—>gold->gems costs more gems to create. If you cant follow this, just realize something simple. Every single gem (aside from promotional gems or achievement gems) is paid for whether it came from gold or gems, at some point anet got paid 1.25 cents for every gem.

Point is, yeah they make money off the gold to gem conversion. Otherwise they would have to come up with some other system for selling gold that takes out as much money as it puts in, which is probably not feasible.

I didn’t say they did not make money. I said they’re not maximizing profits. I believe that, were there no gold-for-gem exchange, they would gain more in sales from people who currently get their gems via gold than they would lose from those who buy gems to exchange for gold now.

Gold-for-gems serves several purposes in the game:

• Competes with 3rd party gold sellers, giving those who want to buy gold an outlet that will not get them banned if caught
• Facilitates many rewards being available regardless of play style
• Gold sink
• Makes ANet money

So, OK, people don’t like the gold-for-rewards part. They still benefit from reduction in gold sellers and the gold sink. If the system were a “cash grab” there would be no merit to it at all. Since this is clearly not the case, my point stands.

They are maximizing profits because they get paid more per gem store item introduced for gold.

trace it back one step at a time. let say someone wants an item for 700 gems but doesnt want to buy it with real cash. they give the Exchange 17.25 gold for each 100 gems, which means they put in 7×17.25 or 120.75 gold. Now some one decided they want to buy 120.75 gold from the exchange, how many gems do they have to buy to get that 120.75 gold the guy sold. Well last i checked the loss was 28.5% so that means he can sell 100 gems for 12.33 gold, in order to get 120.75 gold at 12.33 per 100 gems.
he needs 979.31 gems. which costs 12.24 dollars

TLDR
so 12.24 dollars was spent to bring this 700 gem item into existence through the exchange. versus 8.75 dollars to bring the item to existence directly from the store.

So i wont use words like cash grab, because honestly, while they are making money off it, many people feel like its worth it, and are happy its there. But it is a mistake to think they would make more money without the exchange. They get paid for every item created, as long as everything is working as its supposed to. They get paid for brokering the exchange of gems and gold between players. Its a win win for anet. As long as people buy the items, regardless of their source, anet is getting paid for it.

zenleto.6179:

Devata.6589:

Yargesh.4965:

Novuake.2691:

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

You can click on the name and see the persons post history. You will find that the ones with huge long posts have huge long posts for in some cases two years. Nothing has changed in their huge long posts in that whole time.

So those people are not just complaining to complain but have specifics concerns to keep talking about. Until they give up, don’t care or Anet fixes it.

It’s called having an obsession. It’s very pretty.

Thats of course also a way to try and dismiss everything. It does not help anything but heey it might give you a good feeling.

“gatchas” are a staple item in almost every MMORPG. they bring in a lot of money from the addicts/people with large expendable incomes who just shell out non stop.

It’s an unfortunately truth and fatal flaw in the micro-transaction business model, that the system is more designed to take advantage of a small number of massive spenders, rather than the larger pool of casual spenders

Devata.6589:

zenleto.6179:

Devata.6589:

Yargesh.4965:

Novuake.2691:

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

You can click on the name and see the persons post history. You will find that the ones with huge long posts have huge long posts for in some cases two years. Nothing has changed in their huge long posts in that whole time.

So those people are not just complaining to complain but have specifics concerns to keep talking about. Until they give up, don’t care or Anet fixes it.

It’s called having an obsession. It’s very pretty.

Thats of course also a way to try and dismiss everything. It does not help anything but heey it might give you a good feeling.

I do dismiss everything, completely. None of it is my problem and never has been. But it is an obsession.

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

• The design intent is clearly not to generate the maximum amount of sales — because there would clearly be more gem sales if players could not exchange gold for gems.

incorrect, the ability to buy gems for gold, is profitable, it allows them to make money off someones desire for items, who would not pay real money. They sell the gold they get from that to a player who has no desire for anything else in the gemstore.

Not only that, but they take a cut of the profits. Essentially, any item that is bought for gems—>gold->gems costs more gems to create. If you cant follow this, just realize something simple. Every single gem (aside from promotional gems or achievement gems) is paid for whether it came from gold or gems, at some point anet got paid 1.25 cents for every gem.

Point is, yeah they make money off the gold to gem conversion. Otherwise they would have to come up with some other system for selling gold that takes out as much money as it puts in, which is probably not feasible.

I didn’t say they did not make money. I said they’re not maximizing profits. I believe that, were there no gold-for-gem exchange, they would gain more in sales from people who currently get their gems via gold than they would lose from those who buy gems to exchange for gold now.

Gold-for-gems serves several purposes in the game:

• Competes with 3rd party gold sellers, giving those who want to buy gold an outlet that will not get them banned if caught
• Facilitates many rewards being available regardless of play style
• Gold sink
• Makes ANet money

So, OK, people don’t like the gold-for-rewards part. They still benefit from reduction in gold sellers and the gold sink. If the system were a “cash grab” there would be no merit to it at all. Since this is clearly not the case, my point stands.

They are maximizing profits because they get paid more per gem store item introduced for gold.

trace it back one step at a time. let say someone wants an item for 700 gems but doesnt want to buy it with real cash. they give the Exchange 17.25 gold for each 100 gems, which means they put in 7×17.25 or 120.75 gold. Now some one decided they want to buy 120.75 gold from the exchange, how many gems do they have to buy to get that 120.75 gold the guy sold. Well last i checked the loss was 28.5% so that means he can sell 100 gems for 12.33 gold, in order to get 120.75 gold at 12.33 per 100 gems.
he needs 979.31 gems. which costs 12.24 dollars

TLDR
so 12.24 dollars was spent to bring this 700 gem item into existence through the exchange. versus 8.75 dollars to bring the item to existence directly from the store.

So i wont use words like cash grab, because honestly, while they are making money off it, many people feel like its worth it, and are happy its there. But it is a mistake to think they would make more money without the exchange. They get paid for every item created, as long as everything is working as its supposed to. They get paid for brokering the exchange of gems and gold between players. Its a win win for anet. As long as people buy the items, regardless of their source, anet is getting paid for it.

OK, maximizing profits point withdrawn, not a cash grab point still there.

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

This is actually an interesting issue. Its there you’re right but its a bit perplexing. I think its an issue caused by player’s mistake and farming. I mean some things take an effort to get yet people sell them for a couple of gold. Others things take an effort to get but they sell for 100s of gold. why is that? the low prices are probably mistakes players make not really thinking over what they should actually charge. The high prices are probably because of farmers. 200g is like 200 hrs of game time for someone who doesnt farm but less then 20hrs for farmers. This is an issue you’re right, technically it shouldnt matter much whether you try to earn something directly then playing other content to achieve it. I wouldnt say this issue is caused by the game though its more a player induced issue the way I see it.

its caused by a reward structure that gives players a lot of stuff they dont need, that they then have to sell to get the things they want, but cant go out and get themselves.

IRL people get confused, but the best way to get anything is to get it directly. not to work and pay cash for it.
you want to fix your sink? it will be cheaper if you do it yourself
you want to make cars? the car company makes them for less than you buy them for.
you want to eat vegetables? its cheaper to grow them yourself.

this game is designed where everyone can get anything fairly randomly, this makes them have to have lower rates, and it also makes it unlikely you will get anything specific you want, this means you HAVE to sell a bunch of crap (remember limited inventory, and you didnt need it anyhow) to get the stuff you want.

This is why players often dont sell things at their real value, they have no idea what their real value is. They arent in the business of selling stuff, they are just following whatever the market says.

Basically things work the way they do because they designed the games item distribution the way they did. Its why the game feels like a big gamble for anything good, mostly a grind for gold, where best gold comes from killing a lot of weak easy stuff in large groups. This is the natural result of the item design.

For the average person it would cost much more to make their own car than to buy it from a manufacturer. The same is true for growing produce in the quantities that compare to what many purchase. Also can be true for sink repairs for that matter.

Also, nothing has a, “real value,” other than what, “the market says.”

for the average person, it costs more because they are not the profressionals. They have not the skills, or the knowhow, or access to the materials, but for those that do, it is still cheaper to build it yourself. Even now, there are car hobbyists who can build a car for substantially less. GW2 tends not to work this way. Also, making produce in your backyard is still cheaper than buying it at a store, even at low yields. See the thing is, the people who are professionals set their prices, based on what they think their time/abilities are worth, and they optimize thier tasks. The Supply in gw2 tends to be generated randomly. Almost every item produced has a signifigant portion of its supply given by people who had no intention, nor desire for said item.

Also actually things do have real value other than what the market says. There are tons of ineffeciencies in the market, that TP players and merchant types take advanatge off. For example, a long time ago it was actually profitable to buy wood and salvage it. Peolple didnt actually know what wood was worth. There are times when it was more profitable to salvage ectos for crystaline dust, on average.

It happens very often that something is worth more than it is priced for. Just because you find someone who doesnt know what they can do with an item doesnt mean that is its true value.

A car hobbyist building a car on par with what could be purchased is going to spend vastly more for the materials than the major manufacturer will. He will need to rent space where the work can be done as some portions of the work will not be possible, or legal, in a residential environment. He will need licenses for some of the work as it involves the use of hazardous materials. He will need to buy equipment that costs more than the vehicle itself, or could rent it. And so on. Of course none of this applies if you are talking about a car kit, but assembling the equivalent of a large model kit is hardly an appropriate comparison.

Value is subjective. Profitable is something else entirely. I throw away things that other people value because its not worth my time to deal with them.

Ashen.2907:

A car hobbyist building a car on par with what could be purchased is going to spend vastly more for the materials than the major manufacturer will. He will need to rent space where the work can be done as some portions of the work will not be possible, or legal, in a residential environment. He will need licenses for some of the work as it involves the use of hazardous materials. He will need to buy equipment that costs more than the vehicle itself, or could rent it. And so on. Of course none of this applies if you are talking about a car kit, but assembling the equivalent of a large model kit is hardly an appropriate comparison.

Value is subjective. Profitable is something else entirely. I throw away things that other people value because its not worth my time to deal with them.

Point is, the people who are dedicating themselves, and their resources to producing something can always do it cheaper than the market will pay (or they will not produce said item for the market) that is not the case in GW2.

you choosing to throw away things that arent worth your time is fine.

But if you want an economy that means something, you wont make people like you a signifigant source of the supply for an item. Because manufacturers/hunters/adventurers cannot compete with a guy who considers these items he gets to be essentially trash.

essentially the way items are distributed, contributes to the lack of desire for a great many things, at the same time makes it less desirable for one to do anything but kill a lot of easy stuff over and over again.
One gets a lot of stuff they dont want, and the best way to get what they do want is to get as much stuff they dont want but other people want as fast as possible.

phys.7689:

snip…

so really the costs show the ratio, of in to out, and adapt to balance them at all times. It doesnt show the actual magnitude.
So lets say the rate is 1 gem for 50 silver. there could be have been 1000000 gems added in one day just means there was 50000000 silver added as well.

Anyhow it could work otherwise, but he basically said it works that way, and that the gem or the gold could in fact theoretically run out.

Thats really surprising. thanks good to know, must have missed that post. Wow I am honestly surprised. Would have bet good money that way more people bought gems with gold then people sold gems for gold. I would really have made that bet so in a way you probably saved me money thanks

zenleto.6179:

Devata.6589:

zenleto.6179:

Devata.6589:

Yargesh.4965:

Novuake.2691:

And here is me, my first GW Halloween, enjoying myself…

Stop complaining!

You can click on the name and see the persons post history. You will find that the ones with huge long posts have huge long posts for in some cases two years. Nothing has changed in their huge long posts in that whole time.

So those people are not just complaining to complain but have specifics concerns to keep talking about. Until they give up, don’t care or Anet fixes it.

It’s called having an obsession. It’s very pretty.

Thats of course also a way to try and dismiss everything. It does not help anything but heey it might give you a good feeling.

I do dismiss everything, completely. None of it is my problem and never has been. But it is an obsession.

Same, only thing I disagree about is it being pretty.